The Bill of Rights tells the federal government "hands off" the rights of the people. Similar language is present in the text of the various State constitutions, as well. Rights, in America, are a pretty big deal. Natural Law proposes that our rights are God-given, and not government-given, therefore, government has no authority over individual rights.
Understanding that rights are a precious thing under the law, advocacy groups have learned that all they need to do is convince everyone that their pet project is regarding a right that belongs to a particular group, and the nation will stand up and listen. In the case of Hobby Lobby, we have been told that this is a case of whether Hobby Lobby's corporate rights trump the rights of individuals.
If the premise presented is corporate rights versus individual rights, the voting public will declare individual rights the winner, every time. There is no doubt that the rights of the individual should always be supreme over a collective right, or corporate right.
Except, that is not what is really happening.
The goal of the liberal left is establishing the government as the supreme provider in the life of an individual. The argument is framed to alert your sensibilities, to rally Americans around causes that have been framed as necessary for the public welfare of the republic. Every pet issue has become a civil right, and special interests are slapping "individual rights" on everything they can. Selfish wants, promiscuous behavior, and personal responsibilities should not be considered a right, and if those behaviors and wants are a personal, individual, right, we are told that government, using taxpayer dollars, should have to pay for it.
Health Care has always been the responsibility of the individual. Families used to put money in a jar for a rainy day, just in case somebody got sick, and they needed the money to pay for the local doctor's house call. Then the concept of health insurance escaped the realm of the rich, and the concept of a third party that pools everyone's money together to help in paying for catastrophic care emerged. The idea grew slowly, until under a wage freeze imposed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, employers began to offer benefits packages in the hopes of enticing quality employees to their company. Eventually, benefits packages became the norm, and no decent employee could be had without a good benefits offering. The government, as it always does, followed up by making the offer of a benefits package the law, and before we knew it, with all of the hands in the cookie jar, third party payment for health care destroyed the industry, drove up costs, and began to limit innovation and the patient's ability to afford the various insurance programs being offered. A mere doctor's visit now costs a mint.
The Affordable Care Act is supposed to be the solution, transferring the third party payment responsibility from private insurance to the federal government.
Meanwhile, since government will be paying for it, that means the face of healthcare will change dramatically, fashioned to buy votes, and enable federal control over lives, and personal data.
One of the provisions is "Reproductive Rights." According to the leftists, if a woman decides to exhibit promiscuous behavior, everyone else must pay for her birth control, including an abortion pill, if she feels it is necessary to keep from carrying "a mistake" in her belly.
Birth Control is not a right. Women, and men, have a choice regarding sex, and they have the responsibility to ensure protection against any consequence of their actions, if they so desire that protection. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to pay for her birth control no more than it is the taxpayer's responsibility to pay for the wardrobe that makes her look like a skank in order to get that one night stand she is looking for.
A right is not a responsibility, and a right is not the same as a privilege. And from the point of view of the Constitution, which grants no authority to the federal government regarding any of these policies, it is none of the federal government's business getting involved in trying to force a privately owned business to go against their religious convictions and be involved in their medical plan paying for birth control, and abortion pill, or anything else that has to do with the responsibility of keeping from getting pregnant.
In the end, the Hobby Lobby case had nothing to do with the rights of women. The ultimate agenda here is simply should the federal government be able to force a business to comply with a centralized mandate, even if it compromises the religious rights of the owners of the business? Should the federal government be able to force its agenda upon business in the name of the rights of a group they use as a base for their political power while compromising the very real religious rights of people who stand opposed to the political agenda of those in power? Should tyranny be able to force itself upon the public, especially against those that dare to oppose it?
The answers are obvious.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Religious Conservatives Finally Admit What They Really Want Out of Hobby Lobby - Think Progress
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